


Get Me

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Gen, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2019-09-28 13:37:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17184011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Sarah is hurt, and David needs a ride.





	Get Me

Underneath the labyrinth of wires and IVs surrounding her, David’s sister looked small and fragile. There was a sterile white hospital blanket covering her body. Her face was pale and bruised, her eyes closed. David swallowed, and tried to concentrate on her heart monitor and only that. The beat was steady. Sarah was hurt. How badly hurt remained to be seen, but she was breathing, and her heart plodded away, apparently unaware of the state the rest of her body was in.

Both of David’s hands were on Les’s shoulders, and if David didn’t tremble, it was only because Les was doing enough of that for the both of them. Mama was crying on Papa’s shoulder, and Papa was clasping Sarah’s hand. David felt far away, jarred by the steady vibration of his phone in his pocket. He’d texted Jack what he knew of the situation on the way to the hospital, not thinking of the stream of questions it would bring in, or whether or not he’d been able to answer them.

The family stood like that, in relative silence, until the doctor came in to talk with them.

“I wanna go home,” Les whispered to David, before the man could even open his mouth.

“Shh…” David cautioned, already leaning towards the doctor to hear what he might say. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Les’s lips twitch, and a lump formed in David’s throat.

“I want to go home!” Les insisted, a little louder this time, in almost the same tone that he’d insisted earlier that Sarah was his sister, and he that he was old enough to accompany the rest of the family to the hospital to be with her.

“David,” Papa said slowly, with a significant glance in his son’s direction.

“Please?” Les said, and his voice cracked. His shaking was even worse, and as much as David wanted to know Sarah’s prognosis, he could tell Les was really scared.

“Tell me everything when I get back,” David said, and then took Les by the hand and brought him outside. The boy all but ran to the end of the hospital parking lot before David put his arms around him to stop him. That was as far as they could go without catching a bus or a subway, and David didn’t want to do that. He certainly wasn’t about to leave.

“Can you stay with Jack for a while?” David asked.

Les let out a muffled sob, seeming to say something about Sarah, which David couldn’t entirely understand. David knelt down next to him, taking hold of his arms.

“She’s going to be fine,” David promised. “I’m almost sure of it. She’ll probably be awake and complaining about the bad hospital food by the time you come back to visit her tomorrow, okay?”

Les nodded. David just hoped that he was telling the truth. He stood up, and took out his phone, not even bothering to look back at the massive log of texts that Jack had been sending him.

“I need you to come pick up Les,” David texted, or at least tried to text. Autocorrect helpfully translated his unsteady typing as, “I me ou to com pick up low,”

“on my way,” Jack texted back, before David had finished typing out an easier to decipher version of his message.

After that, there wasn’t much to do but wait around for Jack to arrive, wonder what was being said and done in the hospital room, and try not to pace. Pacing, or seeming to be worried, wouldn’t help Les. Being far away from Sarah was having almost the same effect on David that looking at her and seeing her hurt had had on Les, but David was at least older and better at hiding it. He needed to be the adult in this situation.

By the time that Jack arrived both brothers were still and silent, the older standing behind the younger, as they scanned traffic for a familiar beat up car.

“Hey,” Jack said, hopping out with the engine still running. Hardly an instant passed before he’d thrown one arm over David’s shoulder, and gotten Les hoisted up in the other. “What’s happening?”

David had already filled Jack in on what little he knew of Sarah’s crash earlier, so he simply told Jack now that Sarah was okay. “Sort of,” he added. “I don’t really know. I don’t think it’s as bad as it could have been…”

But it wasn’t good, either, and David had to bite his lip to keep from letting his worries spill out with Les in ear shot. There were plenty of things that being involved in a car crash could do, even if it didn’t kill you. There were 206 bones in the human body, and as far as David knew, any one of them could have been broken. For all he knew the crash had smashed Sarah’s spine. She could be in a coma now. David just didn’t know.

Jack gave squeezed David’s shoulder.

“I’m guessing you wanna be back in there?” He asked.

A nod from David. Jack kissed him on the cheek and let go.

“Keep me in the loop,” he said.

“Okay. If there are any major problems with Les…”

“There won’t be.”  
“I know, but if there are…”

“Call, don’t text. You’re mom’s a technophobe, I know all this stuff, remember?”

Jack poked David in the forehead, and David gave him another quick hug, before heading back towards the hospital. Maybe he should’ve told Les to behave, and he most definitely should have at least remembered to say thank you to Jack, but he only remembered these things are he heard the car pulling away. Probably Les and Jack already knew.

-end


End file.
